It's Election Day! Make Sure You Vote
Today marks the mid-term elections across the country. If you haven't voted early or done absentee voting, please find your way to a polling place and ensure your voice is heard, whether you politically lean left or right. I especially urge Illinois residents to get out and vote as there are some really important measures on the ballot up for vote today, such as:
- Right to Vote Amendment: Provides that no person shall be denied the right to register to vote or to cast a ballot in an election
- Crime Victims' Bill of Rights: Modifies the Crime Victims' Bill of Rights by strengthening the rights of crime victims during criminal court proceedings
- Minimum Wage Increase : Advises the legislature to increase the state's hourly minimum wage to $10
- Birth Control in Prescription Drug Coverage: Advises the legislature to require prescription birth control to be covered in prescription drug coverage health insurance plans
- Millionaire Tax Increase for Education: Advises the legislature to increase the tax on income greater than one million dollars to provide additional revenue to schools
If you don't know where your nearest polling place is, you can visit this website to find your district's location.
Myanmar Photo Series by Michael Kunde
Travel photography is so amazing because it allows viewers to see a part of the world they may never get the chance to visit themselves. Depending on the photographer, each photo also represents not only a memory of the setting, but also the memory of the moment itself. Photographer Michael Kunde's photos from his visit to Myanmar were featured on The Phoblographer recently, and he was able to give a little insight behind his photo set, saying:
“I love playing with tones and color and I’m not afraid to experiment. [...] A really interesting and unique color treatment can really change the emotion the viewer is having while looking at the photograph.”
Indeed, a large number of his Myanmar photos evoke different types of emotions from an ethereal longing to sorrowful empathy. While I've only selected five photographs below, you can find more of Kunde's photos on his Behance page and website.
[via The Phoblographer]
The Death of Conversation Photos Highlight Our Smartphone Dependency
Photos by Babycakes Romero.
Before I got my first iPhone (January 2011), I would never be on my phone. Sure, I'd get the occasional text message and call, and I would get subscribed tweets to my phone every once in awhile, but I never truly considered it to be a vital part of my daily life. When I upgraded to the iPhone 3GS, my life changed. All of a sudden, I had the internet at my disposal, and instead of simply waiting until I got home from work to fall into the dreaded Wikipedia black hole, I'd just do so on my commute to work, during downtime, and on the commute back. The near-four years since haven't changed much, with work emails constantly coming in, social media needing to be attended to, and meeting reminders. In saying that, I've made a conscious effort to pull away from my phone when I'm around certain company, and with my iPhone 4S on its last legs, I try not to be on it as much as possible while I'm out and about.
Babycakes Romero, a street photographer based in London, has turned to the rise of smartphone dependency (and the fall of personal communication) with his latest photo series, The Death of Conversation. In his photos, he captures groups of people not interacting directly with one another, but instead face down to their phones. As Romero puts it himself:
I started to photograph people in company on their phones as there was a certain symmetry to them and it appealed on a visual level, but as I continued I noticed an inherent sadness to the proceedings.
Indeed, the inherent sadness captured in the photos are buoyed by Romero's decision to filter the photos to black and white, creating a grim tone throughout the photos. As smartphones grow smarter, our reliance on them as a tool to make it through the day and not direct, personal social interaction really could mean the death of conversation as we once knew it. Check out some of my favorite photos from the set below, and find more on his Bored Panda post.
[via Bored Panda]
Adventures in Babysitting Photo Series Shows Perils of Babysitting
Babysitting may seem like the easiest gig ever. Who wouldn't want to sit around watching TV and making sure a baby eats every little bit and sleeps comfortably? However, babies are scary things, being way too delicate and fragile for all of the fun things life offers. When a Swedish couple, Erica and Hannes, was deemed with babysitting a friend's six-month-old for a day, they were given a laundry list of things to do/not do that might come up with their time with the little guy. Still, I'm pretty confident their friend's list didn't include animal attacks and alien abductions.
In their photo series Adventures in Babysitting, Erica and Hannes photoshopped precarious dangers that faced the trio during their day together. The couple even gave hourly reports to their friend, letting them know that everything was A-OK, all things considered. The last time I babysat my nephew, he fell asleep an hour into it. Little did he know the adventure was just beginning... but that's another story for another time. Enjoy Erica and Hannes' Adventures in Babysitting photos below!
[via PetaPixel]
Sarah Rosado's Cereal Portraits of Musicians
Creativity knows no bounds for artists, and one artist has captured this idea by expressing herself through something as "simple" as using a breakfast staple. Inspiration strikes at the weirdest times, and for Sarah Rosado, this was no exception. "The inspiration for the series came one morning when one day while eating cereal and listening to oldies and R&B music," she says, adding that creating portraits of celebrities' faces with corn flakes came from the random thought that music has never tasted so good. The choice of corn flakes was a deliberate one, both because they're Rosado's favorite type, but also because the portraits are, as she says, "Easier to manage when creating images requiring finer lines."
Check out some of Rosado's cereal portraits she's created below, including such artists as Bob Marley, Aaliyah, Lauryn Hill, Pharrell, and more! Be sure to check out Rosado's website and Instagram for more from the artist herself.
[NYCC 2014 Photos] New York Comic Con 2014 Cosplay
Photos by Crystal Shepherd
I've been going to comic book conventions of varying sizes in Chicago for almost a decade now. Attending New York Comic Con, however, was its own beast. Thrown by ReedPOP, the same organizers that put together both San Diego Comic Con and C2E2, NYCC was always seen as the second-largest comic book convention in the US behind SDCC. This year, the Javits Center in Midtown Manhattan had upwards of 100,000+ attendees walk through its halls each day, nearing (if not surpassing) SDCC's numbers.
When I attend comic book conventions, I'm mainly there for two things: Buying stuff and checking out cosplayers. I took care of my purchases on the convention's first day (welcoming the Tobias Funke and Super Saiyan Goku Funko POP vinyls to my collection) and spent the rest of my time at NYCC 2014 looking for some amazing cosplayers. NYCC 2014 didn't let me down, as my friends and I ran across a full set of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, the partial cast of Final Fantasy IX, Bob and Linda from Bob's Burgers, the Scooby Doo team, and even a Titan from Attack on Titan.
Seth Casteel's Underwater Puppies Photos Are Adorable
Photographer Seth Casteel recently released a photo book entitled Underwater Puppies featuring, you guessed it, photos of puppies underwater. While it might seem a bit inhumane to just throw puppies into a pool for the sake of a photo, Casteel sheds light on how he was able to capture the photos of these cute canines:
To create this series, I taught swimming lessons to over 1500 puppies, building their confidence in the water and helping them develop safety and survival skills... Most of the puppies only swam for a few minutes and were not ready for pictures, but some decided to start jumping in on their own and chase after toys!
The book is a follow-up to Casteel's previous Underwater Dogs. Check out some select photos below. You can find more from Casteel's "Underwater Puppies" series on his website.
[via Demilked]
Check Out Julien Douvier's Amazing Cinemagraphs
GIFs are god's gift to the internet. Whenever in doubt of what to say in response to somebody, there's probably an accurate and equally entertaining GIF at your disposal. At the same time, they're usually nothing more than just mini-video clips pared down to a few simple frames. Cinemagraphs, on the other hand, are the artistic, photographic version of GIFs that are absolutely astounding.
While perusing the internet this morning, I came across French artist Julien Douvier's collection of cinemagraphs. Just as the portmanteau of cinema and photographs imply, cinemagraphs are photographs collected together with very subtle animation in the frame to give off an extra level of artistry to the photographs. In Douvier's work, they can be as subtle as smoke rising or water rippling, or even something a bit more obvious, like a woman dancing in a frozen crowd or a train speeding by.
I've collected some of my favorite cinemgraphs from Douvier below. For more, check out his website, Tumblr, and Behance pages!
[via PetaPixel]
